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Iran Says an American’s Reports Were ‘Illegal’

By Robert Mackey March 2, 2009 3:07 pmMarch 2, 2009 3:07 pm

Saberi family/NPRRoxana Saberi with Iran’s former President Mohammad Khatami in an undated photograph released by her family.

Updated | 4:11 p.m. On Monday in Tehran, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, Hasan Qashqavi, said that Roxana Saberi, an American freelance journalist who was detained in Iran four weeks ago, had been doing “completely illegal and unauthorized” work.

According to an Associated Press report, Mr. Qashqavi pointed out that Iran had revoked Ms. Saberi’s press credentials in 2006, but he “refused to say whether the 31-year-old freelance journalist, who has reported for National Public Radio and other media, was in prison.”

By his daughter’s account, Mr. Saberi told N.P.R., she was detained after buying a bottle of wine, which is illegal in Iran. Mr. Saberi added that he thought that was just a pretext for the arrest, since Iranians caught buying wine are usually fined, not imprisoned.

Even fines are rare these days, unless it’s a big sting operation and they’re after distributors. Alcohol is not only widely available, but in cities like Tehran, almost in every home above a certain socioeconomic class.

No one, to my knowledge, has in recent years been given anything more than a few hours at the police station and a fine for drinking or buying alcohol. It has to be remembered that alcohol production and consumption is not illegal for the religious minorities — i.e., Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians — so there is a plentiful supply, as well as bootleg liquor flowing across the porous borders with Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey.

Jeff Christensen/ReutersRoxana Saberi, second from right, in the 1997 Miss America contest.

Ms. Saberi, born in New Jersey and raised in North Dakota, is an American citizen. In fact, she nearly became Miss America, reaching the final stages of the beauty pageant in 1997 as Miss North Dakota. Her father, however, was born in Iran, and that seems to matter more to the Iranian authorities than Ms. Saberi’s citizenship or the fact that her mother, Akiko, is originally from Japan.

Mr. Saberi told N.P.R. that Iran issued his daughter an Iranian passport when she moved to Iran six years ago to work as a journalist and to complete a master’s degree in Iranian studies.

Mr. Majd notes that “being both Iranian and American is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it definitely affords one more protection because Iran is mindful of its image, and arresting an American brings attention, but on the other hand, depending on for whom one has written or what one’s activities are, could bring suspicion.” As Mr. Majd says, Ms. Saberi “worked for Fox at some point, and the BBC, which are both considered propaganda tools against Iran.”

Ms. Saberi reported openly from Iran, as the photograph at the top of this blog post, showing her with former President Mohammad Khatami while holding a video camera, suggests. A look at the subjects she covered in some of her reports might might help to explain why she was detained.

As Ms. Fathi reported in The New York Times, Ms. Saberi’s arrest “comes at a time of increasing pressure before presidential elections in June, during which at least two pro-reform candidates will be running against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” One of those candidates will be Mr. Khatami, whose reformist presidency preceded the conservative backlash that brought Mr. Ahmadinejad to power.

Ms. Saberi has frequently tackled subjects that skirt the edges of taboo in the more conservative Iran that Mr. Ahmadinejad hopes to continue leading. In 2007 Ms. Saberi produced a radio report for N.P.R. on women being arrested as part of “a new wave of Iran’s nationwide morality crackdown against fashions deemed un-Islamic.” In 2006, she filed a report for the BBC from Tehran on the growing popularity of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam frowned upon by the conservative Shiite authorities. Two weeks ago, as Ms. Fathi reported, the government “destroyed the place of worship of members of a Sufi group called the Gonabadi Dervishes” in Isfahan, a city in central Iran.

Mr. Khatami himself has not been immune to pressure from Iran’s conservative forces. As the British newspaper The Guardian reported last month, an Iranian newspaper that is known to support Mr. Ahmadinejad “warned the country’s reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, that he risks being assassinated like the late Pakistani political leader, Benazir Bhutto, if he stands in the forthcoming presidential election.” The Guardian’s correspondent in Tehran, Robert Tait, wrote that the newspaper’s warning was “seen as a thinly-veiled threat by hardliners that they will resort to violence to prevent Khatami winning June’s poll.”

Ms. Saberi’s arrest has nothing to do with the purchase of wine. The radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leadership has arrested Saberi to silence her. Her compelling coverage of life within Iran and her revealing stories of government activities have made her a target. I pray for her safe and immediate release. I hope the U.S. government makes her timely release a priority. Journalists need international protections and support in place to safeguard against these potencial situations.

It is beyond ironic that this piece describing the arrest and detention of a US citizen who has reported on a variety of the Iranian government’s actions against its citizens is appearing on the same day as Roger Cohen’s emphatic defense of his own description of why Iran is not a half bad place to be for Jews and other residents!

The “illegal activity” was telling the truth and everyone knows that. But, if the Iranian government denies that this is the reason, then they do not have to have “that” discussion. Democracy has no meaning to the hardliners who have absolute control, even when Khatami was president.

I feel pitty for the majority of Iranian people who are living in an oppressed country. Their country is being controlled by a tiny minority and they seem powerless to do anything about it. Most do not wish to live by strict Islamic laws, but those in power will do anything to keep it that way.

I agree with Bella’s comments whole heartedly. This isn’t about alcohol, it’s about neutralizing dissent. However, that Iranian passport that Ms. Saberi holds may actually hinder her release. The same Iranian passport that made her exempt from visas, and not compulsory like other foreign journalists, means that under international law, the Iranian government doesn’t have to treat her different to any other Iranian citizen. As was the case of Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian journalist a few years ago, the US government acting through it’s interests section at the Swiss embassy can only act as an observor, and really has its hands tied. The Iranian regime might be backward, but they’re not stupid. If she was solely an American, she would have just been deported. They would rather make an example out of her. I’m sure she will be fine, though let’s hope they don’t hold her for too long.

#2 What are you talking about? Mr. Coen doesn’t deny that oppression exists in Iran. Nor does he argue that it’s an open society. How does supporting the people of Iran equal being an apologist for the fundamentalists? I think your hawkish political ideology softens brains. Think about it for a minute. Ms. Saberi was herself a believer in the Iranian people and wrote passionately about their day-to-day struggles under the regime. I think that she and Coen would probably agree on most things, including US policy in the region. Just because Coen doesn’t call Iran a bunch of baby-eating Islamofascist totalitarians doesn’t mean he approves of Saberi’s arrest. Your view of the press and its role is not a lot different than the mullahs’.

God bless her courage, anyway between Iran killing us soldiers in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan I can only hope our state department makes it understood that of the she is not releases the mullahs will be hearing from the defense department.

God bless her courage, anyway between Iran killing us soldiers in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan I can only hope our state department makes it understood that of the she is not released the mullahs will be hearing from the defense department.

I just don’t get it with these Iranians. In 1953, we got rid of their elected government for them and put in place someone we know was good for us, uh, them, uh, us, uh, never mind.
Why don’t they get that it is up to us (the United States) to decided what’s best for Iran and Iranians.
These people are just so stubborn. They continually to refuse our demands to run their country in the way we see fit.
I hope that our Defense Department gives them the message once and for all:
“The US says “jump”, Iran says “How high”. Period!

Do you really have any reason to believe that Iran has any involvement in what’s going on in Afghanistan? They have never, ever had any favorable dealings with Wahhabiism OR the Taliban? If anyone from either of those groups ever reared their heads in Iran they would be welcomed with a firing squad. Or a rope.

The only instance I can recall of Iran backing anyone in Afghanistan in recent memory were the forces of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. Who else was supporting him? Oh wait, the USA.
When and how did he die, again? September 9, 2001, via a suicide bomb in a camera.

Can you guess the significance of this, and who killed him, and who Iran was NOT supporting?

The current Iranian leadership should be such an embarrassment to the Iranian people. It is a fanatic regime where lying is the norm and dissent is intolerable. This is a brutal and barbaric throwback to the middle ages that now is seeking nuclear weapons to put on the increasingly long range ballistic missiles in its inventory.

I was very sorry to hear this story. Roxana Saberi’s reports from Iran always illuminate a most murky culture and regime. Her reports opened my mind to a culture and country I’ve been raised to hate and I thank her for that and hope for her safe return.

Iran once again proves why freedom of the press is such a precious gift. A regime that has to quash dissent and the free flow of information has something to hide, and it’s usually vile and ugly.

I am afraid that the west is headed for a holy war with Islam. I hope I’m wrong, but our continued efforts to appease Muslims simply is not working. Eventually, they are going to demand something that we simply can not give them, and war will be the only option left. You can not compromise with a people that won’t hear of it.

It’s not exactly like they get up in the morning and think about what evil stuff to do that day, like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, but, in fact, they are behind everything bad in that region, Hamas, Hezbola, the insurgency in Iraq.

Why? Because they have some absurd religious notion that God wants them to regain every bit of land that was ever occupied by Islamic people, including in Europe and the middle east, and that if they turn the world Islamic then some imaginary 12th imam will reveal him/herself and everyone, the world over, will all be redeemed and revel in their version of Islam.

The way I see it, the bunch that run the dictatorial government of the so-called “Islamic Republic of Iran” is not a legitimate government.

The so-called Islamic Republic of Iran was created in 1979 by unelected, unrepresentative religious thugs, racketeers and dictators who, by use of force, took over that country.

That band of thugs should not be recognized as legitimate by anyone in the world community. They should be ostracized, not recognized.

As far as nukes go, why exactly does Iran NEED nuclear weapons? Iran faces no existential threat. They are at peace with their neighbors. No one threatens them. Who is the intended target? Taking into account Iran’s regular pronouncements as to its desire to see Israel disappear, can you blame Israel for being a little nervous?

Their elections are a sham. The ayatola allows one crony to run against another crony. At the end of the day, it makes no difference which loudmouth clown gets elected because regardless of who wins what you get are cronies and lackeys who do the ayatola’s trouble-making bidding.

It`s time for the Iranian people themselves to get rid of its unelected, fascist ayalotas, moolahs and their loud-mouth, pip-squeak president. The world community should help them in this regard.

The so-called Islamic Republic of Iran was created in 1979 by unelected, unrepresentative religious thugs, racketeers and dictators who, by use of force, took over that country.

-Mike

How is that different than the Shah of Iran? He was un-elected and un-representative thug who took the country over by force (of the CIA).

We can sit here and talk … about the Iranian government all we want, but Americans always tend to forget that we are the DIRECT reason why they came in power. In some twisted way, we put them there.
So why are we complaining? WE removed the elected government in 1953, installed a brutal dictator, then complain that the Islamic revolution is an un-elected dictatorship.

If it was against the wishes of the people of Iran, Installing the Shah in 1953 and keeping him in power, as you say, was wrong.

What the religious thugs are doing to Iran now is equally wrong. Probably worse. The Shah did not pick fights with neighbors, did not enforce repressive religious law and did not systematically oppress minorities on the basis of religion, gender, political stance or sexual orientation.

Maybe he didn’t impose religious law, but he did supress any opposition to his regime. He crowned himself The King of Kings and marginalized his opponents through the aid of SAVAK, Iran’s equivalent of the CIA, all while lining his pockets with vast sums of money.

He also sold off the country’s recently nationalized oil production to foreign investors against the will of the people when he first took power in the early 50’s. It’s all about the oil. He continually sidestepped democratic arrangements and refused to allow meaningful civic and political liberties, remaining unresponsive to public opinion.

Mike,
I was in Iran several months ago and can tell you that
NYT website plus a host of other news sites are blocked in Iran. However, the internet savvy users (mostly the younger generation) have found ways to circumvent the blocks but I doubt NYT has many readers in Iran. People interested in news would access the sites in Persian or better yet get their news from VOA and BBC Persian programs on a satellite dish which is banned in Iran, like the alcohol, but whoever can afford one has one – even the mullahs!

It is these very journalists which are propaganda tools for FOX and BBC that become the conduit for invasion. It is their propgandastic work, their imperial cheerleading, that causes ignorant people to support invasions. Instead of humanizing the people they report on, they write sensationlist garbage. She is also an Iranian and falls under jurisdiction of Iran’s laws. And why is she not respecting the law in Iran by drinking? She had it coming to her.

[Reza, Have you read or listened to Ms. Saberi’s reports from Iran? If so, can you say which parts of them appear to be “sensational” or seem to have serve a “propaganda” purpose? — NYT Ed.]

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The Lede is a blog that remixes national and international news stories -- adding information gleaned from the Web or gathered through original reporting -- to supplement articles in The New York Times and draw readers in to the global conversation about the news taking place online.

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